Micron fourth quarter misses estimates as sales fall

US-MICRON-RESULTS:Micron fourth quarter misses estimates as sales fall

(Reuters) - Chipmaker Micron Technology Inc posted lower-than-expected quarterly results due to a dip in chip sales.

The company reported a net loss of $243 million, or 24 cents per share, for the quarter ended August, its fifth straight quarter of losses.

It had a fourth-quarter loss of $135 million, or 14 cents per share, a year earlier.

Sales for the company, which counts Intel Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co among its customers, fell to $1.96 billion from $2.14 billion a year ago.

Analysts on average were expecting a loss of 23 cents per share on revenue of $2.11 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sales of NAND chips fell 12 percent compared to the third quarter and those of DRAM chips declined 9 percent, the company said.

The company experienced difficult market conditions and lower average selling prices in the year, Chief Executive Mark Durcan said in a statement.

Last month, CEO Durcan told Reuters prices for NAND memory chips should firm early next year as industry production cuts help reduce supply.

Economic sluggishness in Europe and the United States and an oversupply of NAND chips, used by Apple Inc and other manufacturers of mobile devices, have hammered prices since last year and caused losses for Micron, which is the only major U.S. memory chipmaker.

In July, the company agreed to buy failed Japanese chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc for about $750 million in cash, moving into the second place in the global DRAM market, behind market leader Samsung Electronics.

The company's shares, which closed at $6.01 on Thursday on the Nasdaq, fell to $5.93 in extended trading.

(Reporting by Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore; Editing by Sreejiraj Eluvangal)

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